Protracted doge – Newspaper Kommersant No. 18 (7463) of 02/01/2023

The Berlin Deutsche Oper hosted the premiere of a performance based on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra directed by director Vasily Barkhatov and Italian conductor Yader Biniamini. The result was a performance about power, which destroys the human in people, believes Esther Steinbock.

Of course, everyone already misses the phrase “the director transferred the action of the opera to the present…” today: it seems that purists are tired of being angry about this (although sometimes it turns out that they are not, there is still gunpowder in the powder flasks), and enthusiasts are rejoicing. On the other hand, how not to “transfer” at least somewhere if “Simon Boccanegra” is about something exotic even for the operatic classics of the XIV century, and a desperately confusing story about a corsair elected to the Genoese doji, about his lost , but then a newfound daughter, about power and about conspirators, motivated by some revenge, and some by love. Obviously, due to the too confused plot, this opera remained a rarity until relatively recently, it was “tasted” not so long ago. But now they have tasted it so well that it is perceived as a selective Verdi delicacy – in any case, under the hands of maestro Yader Binyamini, vero Verdi sounded, beautiful, voluminous, rich and, moreover, in a special melancholic, dramatic, even gloomy way.

Vasily Barkhatov staged a well-thought-out, convincing in detail performance about the circulation of power, about its recurring and reproducing cycles at the Deutsche Oper. In these irrevocable circumstances, all human feelings and impulses are depreciated, all good intentions are doomed. In the instant responses to the premiere, some Berlin bloggers agree that they lacked some kind of fusion with the emotions of the opera characters. Well, perhaps so, but this can also be attributed to the merits of the production – Barkhatov looks at history from a distance, even with irony.

No Genoese seaside romance. The two-tier construction of the artist Zinovy ​​Margolin effectively represents a kind of section of society. The two main spaces of the performance are the wall-separated library in the Doge’s Palace and a kind of reception hall where the overdressed “elite” is waiting for fateful news, discussing it and even thinking that they themselves are making it. Both of these spaces are located on a turntable, so they can quickly change each other. But it turns out that in fact dirty politics is done outside the light of day. But the gallery serves as the second floor – there are windows to the outside world, but only silent people appear there, who are entrusted with performing a familiar ritual: they meet each incoming ruler with the slogan “Long live the name!”, And each leaving – “Death to the name!”.

To make the main idea sound more convincing, the director doubles the duration of the action. The prologue of the opera takes place fifteen years before the main events, but Barkhatov also invents a pre-prologue in it, as if another fifteen years earlier. And at the end of the play there is an epilogue. All this in order to repeat the same mise-en-scene three times: the acquaintance of the new Doge with the attendants – security, cooks, waiters. First, they are lined up in front of Doge Fiesco, whose daughter will later be Simon’s mistress, then Boccanegra himself undergoes this procedure, and in the finale, his daughter’s lover Gabriele Adorno, whom Boccanegra manages to forgive before his death and appoint his successor on the throne. By this time, the title character himself, having barely died, is already making a journey in a coffin past the people, on the upper gallery. The funeral, by the way, is also rhymed in the play: in the prologue, Boccanegra manages to say goodbye to his beloved, who is lying in a coffin.

Vasily Barkhatov came up with another very witty trick: each of the key scenes in his performance takes on a kind of “fork” – the director discovers a possible happy ending of the episode, after which the lights go out on the stage, blindingly bright lights run on the proscenium, and then we see the continuation of the scene and her “real” ending, which invariably turns out to be dramatic. By the way, Boccanegra himself from time to time dreams of unrealizable happiness – and then we see a blurry video of a certain family idyll, which in reality is inaccessible to politics. And there is no need to explain why one of these imaginary finals sounds so strong, when the parliament of “Genoa”, discussing pressing issues, suddenly unites with the people. Politicians literally join hands with ordinary people and proclaim the priority of love and peace. Well, then, after the blackout, everything goes like in life – poisoning, murder, revenge.

As if catching this emotional wave that arose in the hall, Dietmar Schwarz, the Deutsche Oper quartermaster, said after the performance that it was especially important to see such a performance from the Russian production team. And almost a special portion of applause went to Maria Motolygina, who performed the only female part in this very “male” opera very expressively and richly. However, the entire premier line-up was like a match – none of the soloists got lost, and everyone sounded not only tense and bright, but also psychologically convincing. First of all, this applies to George Petyan (Boccanegra) and Liang Li (Fiesco), whose duet in the last picture became the dramatic culmination of the performance: two middle-aged people sitting side by side who are finally ready to forgive their friend the past and end the enmity – although it is already too late, to be able to enjoy the world.